Phil walks to the CD player—you live in the nineties, in the past—and he digs around and he finds what he wants and he plays what he wants and it’s Jeff Fucking Buckley’s voice and it’s Leonard Cohen’s words.
“Hallelujah.”
This is not where we were headed and he cups your face in his hands. “I need you.”
“Phil…”
“I miss you.”
This is why we should have had a full-on fucking affair. He’s getting to you. You want me but I’m here and he’s there. His hands move along your body and you close your eyes and from your lips he draws a kiss and you don’t really care for your rat, do ya? He habitually abuses you with his own lyrics and now he seduces you with Cohen’s, whispering in your ear about faith and there you are, letting him croon a better man’s words as he slides his hand under your skirt.
I clench the bag of popcorn. He is a boa and he unzips your slutty skirt and tightens his grip on your neck and he tells you that you’re a bad girl and he bites your ear and he shreds your tights and somehow he has six hands, eight hands. Your shirt is off and his jeans hit the floor and he’s inside of you—he breaks your throne and pulls your hair—and you moan as if you want that, as if you like that. You pretend to finish—there is no way you liked that—and he lifts you up like the pipe-smoking captain to your legless mermaid. That was our Normal Norman Rockwell painting at the pub and now you’re in it with him, in the cage of his arms, your marriage. He lights another cigarette and he spoons you on the sofa and his ashes hit your tits. You wince and he kisses the places where he burnt you and you do not go together. We do. He puts his butt out in your half-empty cup of coffee and he strokes your Murakami with his nicotine-stained hand, callused fingers. “All right,” he says. “Are you gonna call Layla or do you want me to?”
You laugh like that was funny and you sigh. “Oh come on, Phil. We both know that you’re not gonna call. Can you do tomorrow at one?”
He squeezes you in a way I never have, with his arms and his legs. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Emmy. You’re my girl. I’d die without you. You know that, right?”
You’re gonna let him fuck you again—you’re the second set of teeth—and I turn off my TV but I still see him—the thorns hide in the wreath—and spicy kernels tickle my throat. I choke and up comes all that indigestible popcorn, shooting out of my mouth, and I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath.
Phil isn’t Leonard Cohen and he isn’t Jeff Buckley but I’ve never moved in you the way he has, the way he does and it’s a cold and broken clock of a Hallelujah. I pour Woolite onto your favorite black sweater and I google “Layla” and “couples counseling” and “area code 206” and there she is in Poulsbo, your licensed sanity killer: Layla Twitchell. She’s your enabler, your enemy in plain sight, the woman who tries to save your marriage, the woman you pay to save your marriage. It’s tempting to get in the car and drive to Poulsbo and make Layla pay for her sin, but I’m not that guy anymore.
I’m a good fucking guy and your rat is passed out in his chair. You took a shower—I didn’t put cameras in your bathroom, I don’t need to see that—and now you’re in bed reading your Murakami, closing the book, writing in your journal, going back to your book. You are like my jeans in the washing machine and you need me to pull you out of that chamber and end this vicious cycle and you look into the lens and I zoom in and our eyes meet. Fuck it. Tomorrow, I will ask you to join me in RIP Kurt’s Meadow and tomorrow you will say yes.
23
You are skipping lunch to go to Poulsbo to see the dentist—nice lie, Mary Kay—and I am on the way to Sawatdy to pick up beef and broccoli. I pull into the strip mall—even Bainbridge isn’t perfect—and the island is turning against us. There was a death in the family and the restaurant is closed and I drive to Sawan but oh that’s right. The family that owns Sawatdy owns Sawan and that’s the problem with an island. There is no beef, no broccoli, and I can’t get it out of my fucking head.
I keep picturing you with that rat. You let him rip off your tights. You let him cum inside of you. But you don’t know that I know about that and good guys move forward. I won’t let one moment of weakness between you and your manipulative ball and chain get in the way of our family. I drive to Starbucks. I buy two lattes, one for you and one for me—Be the change you want to see in the world—and I blast Sam Cooke. Positive Joe! I drive to the library—remember when I thought I was moving to a walker’s paradise?—and I barge into the library with a big fat smile on my face, as if you didn’t permanently ruin Jeff Fucking Buckley for me.
I knock on your door. You look up and you don’t invite me in. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I did a mobile order and I got two by mistake. You want?”
You gulp. You want. “You should see if Ann wants that. She’s downstairs.”
I smile at you. “By the Red Bed?”
You do not smile at me. Too much. “Joe…”
“Sorry,” I say. “It was just a joke.”
You look so sad, and I bet Layla is on Phil’s side—maybe she’s fucking him too!—and you are getting it from all angles. Come on, Mary Kay. I know you’re in hell. Open up to me. Tell me about your no-good, very bad week. Tell me about Melanda. Tell me about Phil. Tell me about Layla. But you don’t. You just tell me that you’re so busy right now. Bullshit.
But I remain positive. Rosie Joe the Riveter. “So I might head up to the meadow and read.” You gulp and that was too much and too little. “Or who knows? Maybe I’ll finally go check out Fort Ward.”
“You should do that.”
“You wanna join?”
You look at Eddie Vedder and then you look at the clock. “You should head out early before it gets too dark. And the meadow’s probably a better idea. It’s closer.”
I inch closer. Closer. “Maybe you should cut out early and hit up the meadow. I can cover for you if that helps…”
“Joe…” Dot. Dot. Dot. “That sounds nice and I know we…” You can’t even finish the sentence. You just exhale. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
I catch your eye, which is no easy thing, the way you’re trying so hard to avoid me. “You know where to find me.”
You nod. “Have a good time up there.”
I walk out of your office and you know where I’m going and it’s my job to go there. But then I hear laughter in History. The hairs on my neck stand up. It’s Oliver and he sees me and I see him and he’s talking to a Mothball, as if he’s a resident, as if he’s allowed to check out books.
The Mothball distracts him—thank you, Mothball—and I get in my car and I drive to the forest because you said it.
It’s Closer.
I am on foot. Oliver wants an update and I snap a picture of the sign—Barn or House—and send it to him. Oliver is placated, for now, and I post my Barn or House photo on Instagram and twenty seconds later there it is.